Politics and Culture

May 25, 2017

How dictatorships start

Cevheri Guven, former editor of Turkish magazine NOKTA, is now another exile from Erdogan's increasingly authoritarian rule:

A day after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared an electoral victory, 10 police officers stormed our office. The first order of business after the elections was to raid NOKTA, a critical news magazine that I headed. They detained my deputy and me.

As the police transported us to a prison in a van, they loudly played marches featuring Erdogan to send me a message that it was the president who wanted my arrest. I already knew that....

The prison I stayed was crowded with journalists, musicians, judges, prosecutors, police, army officers, and academics. Hundreds of very well-educated individuals stayed in cells around me, but I could not talk to any of them.

Charges against me were frequently changed throughout the investigation. I was released pending trial after spending 2 months in prison. They seized my passport and I had to report myself to the police every week.

The 14th Istanbul High Criminal Court that released me and some of my colleagues angered Erdogan. Similar to how he threatened me prior to my arrest, he was now threatening the court for releasing us.

Judges on the bench were first dismissed from their posts. Then one of them was arrested. My lawyer was also arrested. New charges were pressed against me and newly appointed judges handed down 22 years and 6 months in prison sentence this week. My crime: Publishing a news magazine cover.

I am 38 years old today. When I leave the prison, I will be 60 years old. My daughter will likely be married. Perhaps she will meet me outside the prison with her kids. My son will be in the early years of his professional career. I actually don’t want him to be a journalist, to be honest.

I am not writing these sentences from a prison cell. Before they came for me, I gave all my life savings to a smuggler, who snatched me out of the country in the dead of night. I rescued my wife and my kids from Erdogan regime’s hell.

I am a refugee now…

This is how dictatorships start. First journalists and intellectuals pay the biggest price. Our lives would either be destroyed in prisons or we would leave the country....

The concept of a “Turkish refugee” is a confusing notion for Europe. I can guarantee that they will face with thousands of them in a short period of time. There is no room for anyone in a regime that Erdogan is building except Islamists. Not Kurds, not Gulenists, not Alawites nor Kemalists.

It is not really about the mass crackdown on Turkish opponents. This is someone who believes that he is the leader of the Islamic world and that he is the chosen one. Considering Turkey’s power, the danger is grave enough that we cannot ignore.